


You Can't Choose What Stays and What Fades Away

by gremlins-came-and-got-me (Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bi Stiles, Dead Hales, Drugs, End is Not Unhappy, F/M, Forced Prostitution, Kate Argent is her own warning, M/M, Past rape of character as a minor, Poisoning, Rape/Non-con Elements, Underage tag is for Kate/Derek, bad kate argent, referenced rape, unsavory situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:15:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25452247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark/pseuds/gremlins-came-and-got-me
Summary: Stiles is working undercover, trying to bring down a large prostitution ring. Only problem, he’s been waking up in various hotel rooms with no memory of the immediate night before. Derek is a forced-into prostitution werewolf who has seemingly met the one john he could ever fall in love with.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Kate Argent/Derek Hale
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	1. Stiles

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from _No Light, No Light_ by Florence + the Machine.
> 
> Read and heed warnings.

~ * ~

Stiles wakes up with the essence of ass in his mouth, smacking his lips like that’s going to help either the taste or the desert-dry of his tongue.

He sighs. It happened again.

Slowly, he sits up, surveying the room with squinted eyes, the little light making it through the blackout curtains still making his head pound.

It feels like a hangover, but Stiles makes it a point to never drink when he’s undercover, and he’s never not undercover these days.

He sighs again. His pants and shirt are tossed carelessly over the armchair in the corner. His wallet lays emptied, cards and bills scattered across the bureau. The ice bucket, which he actually remembers filling at some point, is tipped over, water dribbling out onto the plush carpet.

It’s a nice hotel or motel. They all look the same to Stiles before he’s fully aware. Above his normal pay grade. Undercover though gets more funds to play with. And Stiles just got his bonus yesterday. From the looks of it, it’s all there, spread across the bureau.

Stiles crawls off the bed, stays low until his head stops spinning enough for him to collect his things. Haphazardly, he shoves the cards and bills back into his wallet and stuffs it in the front left pocket of his slacks. Then, he takes his clothes into the bathroom, strips off his tacky boxers, and steps into a cold shower.

Five minutes later, freshly washed and finally awake, Stiles searches the room for his phone, finding it flung under the bed, one single unread message flashing at him.

It’s his boss, in the phone as “Marge.”

“Marge” wants to know what the fuck happened to dinner (surveillance) last night.

Stiles wants to know too, but whenever he wakes up in a hotel (or motel) room, which is becoming frighteningly frequent, he never remembers the previous night. In fact, he doesn’t even know why he needed the ice.

As far as he can remember, he was alone. But if that were the case, why didn’t he go to his apartment? His undercover assignment came with a swanky pad where he could crash when he wasn’t pretending to be a dealer looking for his next sale spot and trying not to step on toes.

He’d already encountered the local pimp who wanted him to supply nearly half a kilo of coke and heroin each to her girls.

Mistress Katherine, as she called herself, Katherine Argent to her Record of Arrests and Prosecutions sheet, had flushed Stiles with cash and gotten half her crew picked up on drug charges.

She’d be looking for more girls soon, and the department now had the resources to hire enough female officers to fill Katherine’s needs. It was a shitty, shitty cycle that felt half-entrapment, half-predatory, and all scumbag, but Stiles wasn’t paid to challenge his superiors.

In fact, he was still being paid his salary while the extra cash he brought in was only to be spent on things related to his cover. He did know, though, that he would never work in a large department again. The things he was being asked to stomach were too much.

And maybe that was why he couldn’t remember last night. And why he’d needed ice too. Maybe he _had_ drunk himself into a stupor.

And then he found the condoms. Used. Three of them. All filled with ejaculate.

“Shit.”

If he’d blacked out and taken one of the hookers to bed, Katherine could be onto them. He could have fucked his case sideways. Literally. “Marge” is going to kill him.

Stiles shoves his phone into his pocket, his feet into his shoes, and his head into his hands. Then, he straightens, tucks the condoms into a complimentary bag, _The Mirage_ , nicest motel around, and heads out to his car.

He’s still a little unsteady, but if he really concentrates, his head doesn’t hurt anymore, and he thinks he’s okay to drive. He’s probably just dehydrated right now.

Stiles calls his boss on his way back to his apartment for a more thorough shower.

“Where the hell were you last night?” his boss, Lydia Martin, demands. Why she wanted to be called “Marge” is beyond Stiles. Although, he supposes it’s a good “mom” name.

“I was at _The Mirage_ ,” Stiles says, a little bitter that he’d ended up at a motel and not a hotel. The _Mirage_ was nice, as far as motels went, but it was still a motel.

“And what were you doing there?”

Stiles could lie to Lydia. He’s done it once before successfully. And she is on the phone, so it’s not like she can see his tells. She clears her throat threateningly.

“I don’t know,” he admits finally. “I found some condoms. Bagged them so they can be run. Pretty sure it’s gonna be my DNA as one of the samples.”

“Unless the maid service did a subpar job,” Lydia says, not unkindly. “And let’s be honest, even the most well-managed chains still have lapses.”

“Yeah, except these are fresh. Still wet.”

Stiles imagines Lydia wrinkling her nose at that information. “And who was the lucky…partner?”

Stiles stifles a snort of laughter. Accidentally coming out as bi to his boss has been the best thing he’s ever done. It’s made her awkward around him, almost like she doesn’t know what to do with him and she can’t not acknowledge that he isn’t straight almost daily.

“Well, there’s ejaculate,” he says, just because he can imagine her stony glare, glad that he’s not in front of her to experience it in person. “But it’s probably mine.”

“Stilinski,” she hisses. “Get your butt back to HQ. And,” she sighs, must be taking a lot out of her to say it, “bring the condoms. We’ll get them tested.” Softer, she asks, “You really don’t remember who was with you?”

“At this point,” Stiles sighs, “I don’t remember anything about last night.”

He takes a left at the stoplight, heading out of town. HQ is a barn on the edge of some eccentric billionaire’s property. The man died with no heirs and the police bought his property when it was sold about three years ago.

Lydia managed to finagle funds to get a state of the art lab installed the old house and they run all their undercover operations out of this place. It makes it harder to track them. Helps that Stiles was a new face in town and Katherine Argent ran into him at the supermarket before his first official day at the station. He’d run his big mouth, bragging about his chemistry degree and knowing how to cut hard drugs safely. He was just trying to impress the young dude hanging around the apples. Stiles was a sucker for big eyes and a pretty red mouth.

And then Katherine had slung an arm around the guy’s waist, said, “Is that so? Think you can get some stuff moved in?”

Stiles had nodded dumbly. If nothing else, he could inform his new boss about her.

Turns out, Stiles walked into the undercover operation by mistake. He’s seen Katherine around from time to time, but he’s never seen the guy again. Shame. He really was Stiles’ type. Tall (well, only an inch or so taller than Stiles), dark hair that was artfully styled, those kissable red lips, and beautiful green or blue eyes (hard to tell with the fluorescent lighting).

Lydia is outside when Stiles pulls up. He always parks in the back, covers his car with a tarp, wipes down his fingerprints, and then heads inside. Lydia grabs his arm and drags him to the house.

She snaps her fingers at him and he hands her the bag with the condoms. Her grimace gives him little joy. He’s thinking he fucked up again. He knows most of Katherine’s girls. He’s not terribly attracted to any of them—watching someone shoot up with heroin takes most of the lust away—but he doesn’t know what drunk Stiles is attracted to. It’s been a long time since he was in college and doing benders on the regular.

“And how long has it been going on?”

That’s Lydia, cutting right to the chase.

Stiles pretends that her question didn’t make him stumble. “Um, maybe once a week for the last four or so weeks.” If he thinks about it, it might actually be closer to eight weeks, of which he informs Lydia.

“Stiles.”

It’s bad. He knows. He winces. If he wasn’t so deep, he’d probably be packing his bags right now.

Lydia sighs. “Were there any condoms the other times?”

“No?” Stiles doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why he found them this time, but he’s almost positive that he’s been having sex with one of Katherine Argent’s prostitutes. “I mean, I didn’t see any.”

“But that means nothing. Especially if you can’t remember anything about those nights. Goddamn it, Stiles, why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

“I wasn’t sure what was going on,” he admits. “I mean, it was just one night a week. Usually Wednesday. I’d wake up in a hotel room, my things kinda scattered, like I’d been drunk or something.”

“Or something,” Lydia mutters. “We’re drawing blood. No, no arguments. If there’s something in your system, we need to know.”

Stiles rolls his eyes but he lets her shove him into the lab. She snaps her fingers and one of the techs, Isaac Lahey, detaches himself from where he’s shooting the shit with his colleagues. “Captain?” He raises an eyebrow at Stiles, and Stiles keeps one of his fingers firmly down with all the others despite the almost overwhelming urge to wave it in Lahey’s face. Lahey has always rubbed Stiles the wrong way. He’s kind of abrasive, very protective of the other techs, and for some reason thinks that Stiles hates them.

Not true. Stiles only hates Lahey. He’s okay with Erica Reyes, quiet, epileptic, pattern expert, and quiet, taciturn, trace examiner Boyd (Stiles hasn’t learned whether Boyd is Boyd’s first name, last name, or nickname. All he knows is Boyd seems to be his preferred name.)

“Blood draw on Stilinski, ASAP. Get it to toxicology.” She thrusts the bag at Lahey. “Also, type these, and get started on a DNA profile. Expect to find Stilinski’s all over it.”

Lahey wrinkles his nose in disgust at the bag. “Really, Stilinski? Couldn’t keep it in your pants for even one mission?”

Stiles lets his lip curl in derision. “If it helps the case, I’m supposed to do it,” he says. “I’ve been given the authority.”

“Yes, you have,” Lydia interrupts, and Stiles knows she’s trying to head off the fight that’s been brewing for the six months that Stiles has been working his case. “But you’ve been reckless. Another mishap like that and you’ll be pulled.”

“You can’t,” Stiles says, far more calmly than he feels. “All the work I’ve done will be undone. You think you can get someone else in place to give Katherine her drugs?”

“Big man, giving addicts their kryptonite,” Lahey spits. “Let’s go, Stilinski. Today, I’m your vampire. Better behave or I might need to stab you repeatedly.”

Lab humor. Stiles doesn’t get it.

Stiles follows Lahey to a sterile room, and then pointedly looks away when Lahey uncaps a needle and draws three small vials of blood. Then, he heads back to the barn where he finds Lydia in her office, head in her hands, the file Stiles has painstakingly helped fill spread out, pictures, reports, tracking information scattered like a path that none of them know how to follow.

“This just doesn’t make any sense,” she says as he takes the only chair in front of her desk.

“What doesn’t make sense?”

“Why would you be drugged? Does that mean your cover is blown?”

Stiles shrugs. “I guess we’ll find out when the blood test comes back. How long is that supposed to take, by the way?”

“Too long. You’ll need to play drug dealer for just a bit longer. I’ll get more patrols around to keep an eye on you, but unless Argent directly confronts you, we can’t help you.”

“Understood.” Stiles stands up, motioning to one of the reports. “I’d think we’d have enough evidence against Katherine by now. What’s stopping us from moving in right now?”

“Ducks in a row, honestly.” Lydia gathers the pages together, tapping them until they’re neat before sliding them back into the folder. “I wish we could go after her now, but the judge hasn’t approved the warrant and likely won’t for another few days.”

“A few days could be all she needs to break down and go.”

Lydia points at him. “That’s if she made you. Now go. And don’t forget to see McCall about your weekly stash.”

Stiles laughs weakly. “Yeah, can’t forget to give the hookers their blow,” he says. Lydia doesn’t respond, and Stiles leaves her office.

Stopping by storage and signing out large quantities of both cocaine and heroin makes his skin crawl, and not even the jovial smile and joking manner of Scott McCall, sunshine trapped in a human body if ever such a thing existed, makes his day any better.

Even worse, one of the bags of cocaine is busted, and it causes Scott to have an asthma attack.

Stiles helps him outside, leaves him in the care of Lahey and his crew, loads up his drugs, and drives back to his apartment.

Nothing else to do until Katherine is ready for him. So, Stiles takes a thorough shower and then drops, still damp, into bed to sleep off what was possibly a bender.

He hopes his blood comes back clean for drugs. If it does, it means Katherine doesn’t know who he really is, and he can continue to work. If they have to start from scratch, the judge will definitely not approve the warrant for Katherine’s arrest.

Stiles buries his head under his pillow to block out the afternoon sun and the noise of traffic and falls asleep with his mouth hanging open, drooling all over his bed.

~ * ~

Stiles wakes up with a crick in his neck and a dehydration headache pounding in his temples. His phone, the burner cell, is trilling. He only ever gets calls from Katherine and “Marge” on it, and he doesn’t think enough time has passed for Lydia to be calling him, which means it should be Katherine.

“’lo?” He coughs weakly, scrambling up and stumbling to the kitchen where he grabs a glass and fills it from the tap, barely running the water on cool before chugging down a whole glass. He refills it, shuts off the tap, and sits at his table.

“Hello, Michael,” Katherine purrs in his ear. “Got anymore product for me?”

“Plenty,” Stiles replies. Katherine is personable, and Stiles sometimes thinks that if she weren’t a criminal, they might have been friends. As it is, Stiles doesn’t trust her as far as he can throw her. “The usual?”

“No,” Katherine says. “How about behind the _Big Mart_?”

Stiles frowns. The _Big Mart_ is sketchy on a good day. But delivering drugs to the leader of a prostitute ring makes it downright suspicious.

“You know I don’t like public places,” he says.

“I know, but I’d feel more comfortable meeting there. I’m sure you’ve heard, my girls are getting busted left and right.”

“Tell them to stop selling to cops,” Stiles jokes, just mean enough that Katherine laughs.

“That’s half my clientele, honey. You know I can’t do that.”

“Right. Okay. So the _Big Mart_ , then? Half an hour?”

“Sounds perfect,” Katherine says, hanging up before Stiles can say anything else.

Immediately, Stiles digs out his other burner phone and calls Lydia.

She answers on the second ring.

“So I don’t know if this means that Katherine Argent has made me or what, but she wants to meet at the _Big Mart_ for this week’s handoff. I feel like it’s a setup.”

“No doubt,” Lydia agrees. “It hasn’t been long enough for any substances to be discovered in your blood, so we’re going to assume that Argent made you. We’ll stake out the _Big Mart_.”

“Any chance you can do that in the next half hour?” Stiles winces. _Cutting it a little close there, Stilinski_.

Lydia doesn’t say anything, but he knows she’s trying to keep her eyes from wrinkling while she frowns at him or his actions.

Lahey was right: he should have kept it in his pants.

“We’ll be there,” she finally says, stiffly. “Don’t look for us.”

Don’t give Katherine any reason to think he knows she’s made him. Don’t screw up being the bait like he screwed up the case. Stiles will never work in law enforcement again after this. He’s going to be blacklisted, left outside, made out to be a corrupt cop too greedy for his own good. Never mind the actual corrupt cop that will help Katherine keep working her girls.

“And Stiles, you’re not alone. Don’t try anything. If Argent pulls a gun, get the fuck out of there and don’t look back.”

“Yes sir, Captain ma’am.”

Lydia hangs up but not before Stiles hears a snort, like she’s reining in her laughter. He has that effect on her. Could be dying, could be murdered by Katherine, and he’ll still be trying to make light of the situation. When he was an awkward teenager, as opposed to an awkward adult, his only defense against bullies was making them laugh so hard they couldn’t hit him. It didn’t always work, but more than once, he’d been rescued by another bully who would stop the first and wouldn’t let them beat up the “funny guy.”

Well, if it came down to it, Stiles could always try and do the same to Katherine.

She seems like she’d have been the bully who stood up for him.

Stiles doesn’t have time for it, but he takes another shower—in-out, no soap, just washing the sleepiness off.

He loads a gun and tucks it into a hidden holster under a tight shirt and baggy jacket. Then, he grabs the keys to the Camaro—the car given to him by Vice to make him stand out as a flashy if twitchy drug dealer.

The drive to the _Big Mart_ feels normal, not like he’s potentially going to his death. Guess six months of undercover work where he could be killed at any time makes the mundane things even more mundane.

He finds a parking spot neither near nor away from the other cars, puts the Camaro in park, and settles in to wait. Nothing else to do.

~ * ~


	2. Derek

~ * ~

Derek comes to all at once, muscles aching from staying in one position for hours. His mouth tastes of iron and bitterness, too dry to swallow, but it seems Kate was merciful and removed the monkshood a few hours ago.

He tests his strength, finds it nearly returned.

That means it’s almost time for him to go out again.

Derek pulls his hands free, careful not to cut the rope with his claws. Kate wouldn’t be very happy with him if he did that.

He did it the first time she ever tied him up and she shot him with so much electricity that he pissed himself and almost broke his teeth. He hasn’t done it since.

He’s a fast learner, even if Kate likes to tell him that he’s stupid, slow, and useless.

He’s not useless. Not completely. If he was useless, she wouldn’t make him go out on the streets, find johns and janes willing to fuck him.

If he wasn’t useless, he’d escape her.

Derek stands up, cracks his back, and ambles to the bathroom to scrub the taste of monkshood and blood out of his mouth. He takes a leak, does an enema, and showers everything but the memory away.

By the time he’s dressed and outside, Kate’s called him twice. Derek winces. That’s for sure an hour on the machine when he gets done tonight.

He calls her back immediately. Waiting any longer, using excuses just means more time on the machine. And if he doesn’t make his quota, he’ll be tied up and choking on monkshood once again. Thank fuck it’s Thursday.

“Where are you right now?” Kate demands.

Derek looks at the street sign. “Pearson and Second,” he reports dutifully.

“God, you’re slow tonight.”

Derek doesn’t say anything.

“I need you to meet Michael at the _Big Mart_ in ten minutes.”

Derek is at least five minutes out from the one-stop shopping mart of Redding. Well, if he were human, he’d actually be about thirty minutes with the traffic. But he’s not human, and that’s probably why Kate is making him meet with her dealer. That, or she’s planning on calling it in, getting him arrested. Or maybe Michael.

Derek doesn’t care.

Michael is the reason Derek’s quota went up. He’s been supplying so many drugs to Kate’s other workers that they’ve been too high to run when the cops bust them.

Derek vowed to punch Michael in the face if he ever met him. Well, here’s his chance.

Kate keeps talking, something about thinking how it’s a little too convenient that all her girls get busted shortly after Michael sells her his wares. Derek wants to say that it’s because Kate keeps giving addicts their fix, but interrupting her isn’t ideal.

Besides, he’s coming up on _Big Mart_ now. The parking lot is half full, cars clustered in little packs. Derek thinks about scraping his claws along a few of them. Just the ones parked like assholes, but the lot has cameras, and he doesn’t feel like explaining how he keyed so many cars when he doesn’t have any keys on him.

“Michael drives a brand new Chevy Camaro,” Kate says. “Red. License plate reads 8MBR776.”

By coincidence, Derek happens to be just a few cars from Michael’s Camaro. “I see him,” he murmurs.

“Good. Did you remember to take your stash with you?”

Derek hadn’t. Oh well. He’s a werewolf. He’ll just intimidate Michael until he gives him the drugs. “Yes,” he tells Kate.

She snorts like she knows he’s lying. “Don’t come crawling back to me unless you’ve got my stuff.”

Derek pockets his phone after Kate hangs up. Then, he walks up to Michael’s Camaro and raps on the door, lightly.

The person inside startles in a way that is not at all unfamiliar to Derek.

Oh shit, it’s his regular.

Derek actually has about five regulars: three men and two women. This man is his newest regular.

Derek usually sees him on Wednesdays. Yesterday.

Derek saw him yesterday. Derek let him fuck him yesterday.

The man had said his name was Stiles, tried to pay him, and then passed out. Derek had taken the money and laid it on the bureau. He’d found several credit cards as well, all with different names, none of them “Stiles,” and laid them next to the money.

Stiles had been fantastic, as always.

He was gentle, loving, and made Derek feel like they weren’t client and sex worker. Instead, and Derek is deeply ashamed to admit this, even if it’s just to himself, he had gone and fallen in love. All because Stiles was nice to him.

It was so bad that even though Derek knew he wouldn’t make quota on Wednesdays, he still met with Stiles and refused to take his money.

Stiles, or Michael, climbs out of the Camaro.

“Hey, I’m supposed to be meeting someone right now. Do you mind?”

Derek frowns at him. Either he’s a really good actor or he doesn’t remember who Derek is. Which kind of stings, oddly. Derek’s a good cocksucker now, and he’d made Stiles cum at least twice that way.

He’s had people stop him on the street in broad daylight just to tell him how good his mouth is. He’s had more than a few sadists try to break him because they thought he was too good of a fuck to be so virgin tight, so they’d worked him over good.

Kate never gets her money’s worth from Derek because he heals before she can see the marks and make the clients pay for damages. A few girls have been “retired” by Kate because they stopped making money after a john hurt them too bad.

Derek’s drawn pain for all of them at one time or another, but Kate doesn’t like him hanging out with them. She thinks it demoralizes the girls. In reality, Derek thinks it’s because some of them would fight her, and if they can get Derek on their side, then he can rip out Kate’s throat with his teeth.

What they don’t realize is that Derek’s known Kate since he was twelve. She’s been fucking him at least as long as that. She has control over him that he can’t seem to break except when he’s with Stiles. Or Michael.

Michael suddenly startles. “Did Katherine send you?” he asks, voice tight. Worried, Derek smells the fear and anger on the man.

“Kate did,” he confirms. “Probably called the local PD on us too.”

“Why?”

Derek shrugs. “To get rid of us.” He doesn’t want it to sting, but it does. Kate’s discarding him after all these years. After all the time and energy she invested in training him. She’s throwing it and him away.

And Stiles doesn’t remember him.

Come to think of it, Stiles hadn’t ever acted like he remembered Derek. At first, he’d thought it was a way to make Derek more comfortable, but now he’s thinking there may be something more sinister at work. He hadn’t noticed anything amiss when they’d met, so it had to have happened afterward.

Unbidden, the taste of monkshood comes to him, and he worries at his lip, aware that he’s biting through it, bloodying it. Monkshood is deadly to werewolves. Derek knows this all too well. What he doesn’t know, hasn’t had reason to think about, is what effect it has on humans.

What if some of the monkshood is sticking around? Kate doses him often enough. And then he’s dosing Stiles.

If humans are susceptible to monkshood, then maybe Derek has been unintentionally poisoning Stiles while Kate intentionally poisons him.

“This is a setup,” Derek realizes. “We need to get out of here.”

“There’s no we in this,” Stiles says. “If this is a setup, then I’m not getting caught in here.” He glances around. “Katherine isn’t here, is she?”

“Katherine?” No one calls Kate by her full name unless they’re not really friends. “No, Kate sent me in.”

“Uh-huh. And let me guess, you don’t have the money for my product.”

Just like that, Derek’s righteous anger comes storming back. “I don’t want your product.” He sharpens his hearing. There’s a van parked around the corner making suspicious cop noises. He turns back to Michael. “If you don’t want to be arrested, then you need to get out of here.”

He doesn’t explain anything else and walks away. Michael must decide he’s telling the truth because just a few seconds later, the Camaro roars past him. Juvenile yes, but Derek raises his middle finger at him. Then, making sure no one’s watching him, he ducks around the corner of the _Big Mart_ building and lets the shadows swallow him. He could stay here and see what the cops do, but he has a gut feeling that Michael is working with the cops. Kate was right: there’s too much coincidence with Michael selling drugs to Kate and then all her girls getting busted for possession. She’s also right that Derek is too slow-witted and stupid to have seen it.

He always makes these mistakes. He always sees the good in people. Even when Kate began having sex with him, he still thought she was kind and cool. Just because he didn’t like the new games, it didn’t mean that she wasn’t his friend.

Then she burned his house down and killed his family.

And assumed guardianship over him.

It’s been six years since the fire and five since Kate first turned him out, and he still can’t leave her. She’s spent so long whispering in his ears that his thoughts aren’t his own, his actions aren’t his own, and his body isn’t his own. With Stiles, he’d thought he was finally where he belonged. But Stiles is Michael and Michael is a piece of shit.

At least that thought is Derek’s and not Kate’s.

He climbs the side of the building. The _Big Mart_ backs up against the main street businesses, and it’s an easy way to escape. Derek’s done it before the few times he was trying to delay the inevitable. It always made the punishment worse, but for a few minutes, he could stare up at the sky and wish on stars. Could breathe and pretend that he was free.

Now, he watches the van creep into the parking lot, stopping next to where the Camaro had been. A lady, redhead, nice pantsuit, steps out, surveys the parking lot. She frowns, throwing her head back. For a long moment, he thinks she’s about to do something, and he tenses. She eventually lowers her head and climbs back into the van.

Then it pulls out, turning left where the Camaro had gone right.

Derek still waits until he can’t hear it even when he strains his ears. Then, he makes his way onto the roof of the bakery and heads toward the apartment he shares with Kate.

She’s sitting at her desk when he climbs in through the window.

“Where’s my product?” she demands, like she hadn’t just tried to setup her dealer and him.

“Forgot I didn’t have my stash,” Derek lies. His heart trips badly, and Kate tilts her head. There’s no way she heard it, but she likes to pretend she has his senses. It fooled him for a long time. Long enough for her to dig her metaphorical claws into him.

He crosses to the bookcase and pulls out the hideaway book he’d made when Kate decided he could have an allowance. He’s just pulled out the money when her electrical baton makes contact with his neck.

He goes down with a small grunt. Before he can recover, she stabs the prod against his ribs, holds it there until he’s screaming, pissing himself, passing out.

~ * ~

Derek gasps awake when Kate splashes a bucket of cold water over his head.

He’s dangling, strung up by his arms, legs lashed to a chain fence behind him. Water drips off, pattering against the dirt floor too far beneath his feet for him to feel. He manages to raise his head, give Kate a defiant look she’s not used to, probably thought she beat out of him years ago. And until this moment, Derek would have agreed with her.

“So that’s it?” he spits. “Done with me?”

Kate laughs. He used to think it was musical, now all he hears are the screams of his family burning to death. If he inhales, he can still smell the ash, the cooking meat.

Kate brought him here, to the basement of his childhood home, to kill him. He knows this, can smell it on her.

“Oh sweetie,” she says, “I was never with you. I just controlled you. And you let me.” She uses the prod to lift his chin. “I’m so glad I got to see you grow up, but I could have done without the betrayal.”

“Turnabout,” Derek says. What betrayal? he wonders. She’s the one who betrayed his trust, an adult using a child. A predator playing with her prey.

“So, you really thought you could fuck a client for free and I wouldn’t find out? That you believed losing money on Wednesdays was acceptable?” Kate shakes her head. There’s a table set up to Derek’s right, a large machine, like a radio or something, sitting in the center, various tools and jars scattered around it. Kate smiles, cranking a dial on the radio. Immediately, Derek’s skin bursts into pain, little waves of electricity marching up and down his body like ants scurrying and fighting, biting and igniting.

He whimpers, breathing harshly through his nose.

Kate taps the dial as if deciding whether to turn it up or off. She finally clicks it off when Derek’s eyes roll back in his head and he nearly passes out again.

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of this that easily.”

“And what is this, exactly?” Derek pants. He can’t catch his breath. If Kate turns on the electricity again, he isn’t sure he can survive. “Torture? For what? How did I betray you?”

Kate slams her hand on the table. “You. Fucked. A. Client. Without taking payment. How is that not a betrayal?”

“Did you forget that you killed my family?” Derek asks through clenched teeth. “Or is there another reason we’re in my basement?”

Kate wags a finger. “ _My_ basement,” she corrects. “After all, your mom had that will listing everything as mine in the case of complete family death.”

“And somehow she forgot me? Or did you forget to kill me too?” Kate’s face shutters, and she locks down her scent. Derek lifts his head. “That’s it, isn’t it? You were supposed to kill me with the rest of my family. What stopped you? Was it your pedophiliac tendencies?”

Kate doesn’t answer, instead twisting the knob of the radio until the lights flicker, and Derek’s muscles are pulled so taut that he’s afraid they’re going to snap. He doesn’t even have the breath for a whimper now.

She stops just shy of him losing consciousness, and he sags as much as his bonds allow.

Without a word, she approaches him, lifts his head and crams a large sprig of monkshood into his mouth. She slaps a piece of tape over his mouth and walks back to the table.

“This is what I’m going to do,” she finally says, unplugging the radio, “I’m going to walk out of here, pack up my operations, and move somewhere else.” She wipes down everything with an old rag, putting some things into a bag and others in a pile in a corner. “By the time they find your body, you’ll be so decomposed, you’ll only be identifiable because of the location. Not that they’ll believe it’s you.” She pours starter fluid over the pile and tosses a lit match on it.

Derek can barely breathe over the taste of blood filling his mouth, warring with the bitter tang of the monkshood. The monkshood saps any energy he might have as a werewolf, leaving him human-weak but still able to survive if he can just get free.

At least, until the monkshood reaches his heart. Then, it won’t matter if he’s free. He’ll be dead.

Derek twists his wrists in the cuffs. Nope. Not getting out that way.

The fire settles, shooting flames and heat toward him. Derek freezes, staring wide-eyed at it. Aside from the stench of burning flesh, it’s like he’s fourteen again, begging Kate to let his family go, crying, trying to trade his life for theirs.

If the fire spreads or sends up too much smoke, he won’t have to worry about the monkshood.

It’s starting to sink in that Kate has really left him here to die. She didn’t kill him six years ago because she wanted something from him. He isn’t sure if he gave it to her or not. All he knows is this is his end.

If he fights, he’ll die more quickly. But Derek knows something she doesn’t: the old Hale house is a hot spot for teenage degeneracy. It won’t be as long as she thinks before he’s found. If he conserves his energy, gets the monkshood as far out of his mouth as he can despite the tape, then he has a better chance of being found alive.

Derek watches the fire, realizes that it’s going to burn out soon. And fading with the flames will be the fear of dying like his family. Derek’s had six years to compartmentalize. If he lives, he’ll be okay.

Using his tongue, already swollen, blistered and seeping blood, he pushes against the sprig, forcing it halfway out of his mouth before the tape stops stretching and keeps it trapped against his lips.

He still can’t breathe properly, only a bit of air making it past his swollen nasal passages. But he already feels the damage slowing. It won’t stop completely, but unless Kate comes back and turns on the electricity, Derek feels positive that he can survive long enough for some curious teen to wander into the basement and find him.

Maybe he can have justice after all.

~ * ~


	3. Stiles

~ * ~

Stiles lies low for a few days after nearly being set up by Katherine—Kate. If her associate hadn’t really been there to kill him, Stiles wonders if he was just as much one of her pawns or victims.

The only reason he even entertains the idea of coming out of hiding is because Lydia contacts him on his cop cell phone, asking if he can come down and talk to Kate Argent. The judge finally approved their warrants, and apparently just in time too. Kate was all packed up, ready to run. If she’d disappeared, they would have no way to follow.

Stiles chooses his clothes carefully. If he dresses too much like a cop, then Kate will be clammed up, annoyed and frustrated that she fell for an obvious sting. But if he dresses like his drug dealer persona, then Kate won’t take him seriously.

He can’t win.

Instead, he decides to dress in moderate clothing, much like what he wore in high school: a band t-shirt under an open button-up flannel shirt and khaki pants.

He’s always felt comfortable in this kind of outfit, and today is no different.

Lydia eyes him oddly and then nods, leading him to an interrogation room.

Kate is handcuffed to the table, head tipped back so that she can stare at the ceiling. She’s pretending to be bored. If he could read her mind, Stiles would bet she’s freaking out. She’s in her early forties. She’s been a madam for a while now. This is probably the closest she’s come to being caught in a while.

And hopefully it’s the last, he thinks. They’ve got to have enough to arrest her otherwise what was the last six months all about?

“Michael,” Kate says when she notices him standing there. “So nice to see you again.”

“I would say the same about you,” Stiles says “except…” He spreads his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.

Kate scoffs. “Rich coming from you. You set me up.”

“Did I?” Stiles pretends to ponder it. “No. I didn’t make you buy drugs or force them down people’s throats.”

“You were a plant,” Kate snaps.

Ah, so it does sting that she fell for it. Well, she’s still the one who wanted him to supply so many drugs to her girls.

“And how’s your whore doing?”

“What?” Involuntarily, Stiles thinks of a dark head of hair tucked against his side. He knew Kate had been tipped off, but he just wishes he could remember those nights. He wants to know who he slept with.

“Your whore,” Kate repeats. “Or did you think it was a coincidence that you met him when you were expecting me?”

Him? Stiles slept with a male prostitute? Kate had a male prostitute working for her?

Why hadn’t Stiles come across this in his research and his undercover life? Why hadn’t Lydia told him before he went under?

Kate must see something in his face because she starts laughing. “Oh, you didn’t know?” She throws her head back and laughs loudly. “Oh that’s rich! What, did you forget him right after sex?” She tsked. “Not a very considerate lover, are you?” She laughs again, and she must love the sound of her own voice because she adds, “But of course, he’s just a whore. Tell me, do you even remember how much the rates were?”

Stiles knows that Kate knows how much they were, and he also knows that she knows he doesn’t know.

“Is that why you sent him to meet me?” Stiles asks. “Because he and I were sleeping together without giving you a cut?”

“He wasn’t charging you anything,” Kate hisses. “He was fucking you without taking payment at all. And now you’ve got to find him.”

“What?” Stiles turns to stare at her. “What did you do to him?”

Kate sits back, rattles the cuffs against the table. “Find him and ask him. He remembers every encounter, unlike you. But you should hurry. He can only survive so long.”

“And where can I find him?”

‘Well, if you remember his name, then you’ll know where he is.”

“And what’s his name?”

Kate blinks, innocence and disbelief. “You don’t remember his _name_?”

“You know I fucking don’t,” Stiles snaps. With someone’s life on the line, he has no time for her games. If it were just bantering about her empire of prostitutes and illegal activities, then he’d settle down, kick back, and shoot the shit with her.

As it is, Stiles senses the clock ticking. And he doesn’t even know where to start.

“Oh well,” Kate says with a shrug. “I guess you’ll just have to think harder.”

Stiles sees red, but before he can do more than step toward her threateningly, Lydia throws open the door.

“Detective,” she says pointedly.

Kate looks between them, glee making her face glow. “Oh, this is your boss? Did she give you all those drugs you tried to get me to buy?”

“That you did buy,” Lydia corrects. “Truthfully? Not that anyone can prove.”

Stiles ducks out. He doesn’t need to listen to Kate jerk them around in circles when the blank in Stiles’ memory is dying.

He needs a plan of attack. How to find out who the mystery man is, what his name is, where he could be.

He could describe him to a sketch artist but that might eat up valuable time.

DNA on the condoms won’t be back yet, so that’s out.

And then it comes to Stiles: security cameras.

They always met at hotels and motels. Some of them should have footage of them. Maybe even of mystery man drugging him. How else could Stiles forget every Wednesday for the past eight weeks?

He’ll start with the most recent motel, _The Mirage_ , and work his way backward. He’s got to have charges on his cards, even if they were the ones issued to Michael Verano. Since he can’t remember much of anything about Wednesdays, he doesn’t know which cards he used: Michael’s, Stiles’, or the emergency cards issued to his holy-shit—I’m-in-trouble-get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here alias. Well, since he wasn’t pulled, even after meeting with mystery man multiple times, it’s probably not his emergency alias.

Stiles leaves a note with the front desk and heads out to talk to _The Mirage_ ’s security team. He needs that video, if it exists. Someone’s life depends on it.

~ * ~

Stiles hits the pavement hard, finds that three of the eight hotels, including _The Mirage_ , has video footage of him entering their premises with a dark haired man at his side. He asks them to send him copies, claims he’s trying to build a case of theft against the mystery man, and they all oblige. Stiles then takes the videos to the resident tech guy, Danny Mahealani.

Danny might hate his guts, but at least he’s professional.

“I don’t hate your guts, Stilinski,” Danny says, exasperatedly. “I just think you’re a bit much sometimes.”

“Hey, it’s a talent,” Stiles says, slapping the discs down in front of Danny. “Need a good shot of the guy I’m with in these videos.” Quieter, more reserved, he leans down, almost whispers, “I think he’s in real trouble. He’s mixed up in Katherine Argent’s operations.”

Danny whistles. “And how long has it been since we arrested her?”

“Three days,” Stiles says stiffly. “Do we know if Kate has any other properties than the ones we know about?”

“What?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Kate has at least three properties here in Redding. Does she have any others anywhere else?”

Danny snorts and taps at his computer. “Ah, yeah. About sixteen, all around the country. Various farms and things. We’ll let local law enforcement deal with those. I think what you’re interested in is the property in Beacon Hills.”

Stiles frowns. “Isn’t that the town that’s just a few minutes from here?”

“More like half an hour, but yeah. And interestingly enough, it’s not a farm. It sits on the edge of the nature preserve out there.”

“But it’s not a farm?” Stiles asks. “Not even a Christmas tree farm?”

Danny shakes his head. “Don’t think so. Anyway, I sent the address to your phone. Why don’t you go check it out while I try and get a good picture of your mystery man?”

Solid plan. Stiles thanks Danny and heads out. Lydia is in her office when he passes by. He pokes his head in.

“Danny’s looking at the footage from the hotels—”

“And motels,” Lydia interjects snidely.

“—to see if he can get a good pic of the mystery hooker and figure out his identity.”

“It’d be helpful if you could at least tell us if the prostitute is the same one as the man who approached you at _Big Mart_.”

“You and me both,” Stiles mutters. He scans his memory again to see if anything has become clearer, but if anything the image he has of the man he met in the _Big Mart_ parking lot is fading. “Hey, I’m heading to Beacon Hills to check out one of Kate Argent’s holdings. Do you want me to take someone with?”

“Couldn’t hurt. Take Parrish from City Police. He was stationed there about five years ago.”

Stiles heads out to the police department. He doesn’t expect Parrish to be in, but when he asks the front desk officer, he’s pointed back toward the chief’s office. He finds an officer making an impassioned plea to the chief, a bald man with small crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and a patient if somewhat amused look on his goateed face.

“Look, Chief, I know you think VCU has this shit under control, but I’m telling you, there’s stuff they’re missing. Why won’t you authorize a secondary sting on Argent’s operations?”

“I think the VCU is here to help you, Officer Parrish.” The police chief nods toward Stiles. The officer spins around, face going red.

He sticks out his hand and Stiles shakes it.

“Officer Parrish, I presume?”

“Yes sir.”

“Detective Stiles Stilinski of the Violent Crimes Unit. Need your expertise on my case.” Stiles shoots a quick look to the police chief, Alan Deaton. “That is, if he can be spared?”

Deaton nods. “Go on, Parrish. But if I hear about even one toe out of line, you’ll be stuck on desk duty long enough to forget what patrol feels like.”

“Yes sir,” Parrish mumbles. He follows Stiles out to his car. And then stares in disbelief as Stiles tosses his keys at him.

“We’re heading out to Beacon Hills,” Stiles explains. “My captain thought someone familiar with the area would be beneficial and time saving.” Stiles climbs into the passenger seat, buckling up. “We—I—think that there’s one more prostitute that we didn’t find with our initial sweep because Kate Argent has him stashed somewhere else.”

“And you think Beacon Hills because?” Parrish gets behind the wheel, cranks on the engine, and only clicks his belt after a pointed look from Stiles.

“Kate has a plot of land out that way, by the nature preserve.”

Parrish shakes his head. “That’s Hale land,” he says. “Tragedy what happened to them.”

Stiles startles. “What did happen to them?” he asks.

“Died in a fire about six or so years ago. We thought the son, Derek, had survived because we couldn’t find a body. And then we received a tip that he’d died about a week before, fell off a cliff. The family had him cremated, and then they all suicide-pact killed themselves.”

“So how’d Kate end up with the property?”

Parrish shrugs. “Beats me. As far as I know there wasn’t a will. At least not one that could be found, so I thought the county took it over. Do you want to stop at the courthouse in Beacon Hills to see who owns the deed?”

Stiles thinks about it for less than a second. “There’s no time. If we can’t find anything out at the old Hale property, then we’ll check the courthouse.” He hopes Danny calls with something before it comes to that. He also hopes, makes a wish, that this is the only place they have to look. That they find the missing hooker.

As if on cue, his phone buzzes.

“Stilinski,” he answers.

“Hey, it’s Danny. Found out who your mystery man is. Problem is, he’s supposed to be dead.”

Stiles cuts a quick glance at Parrish, who is pretending to drive and not eavesdrop on his conversation. “Let me guess,” Stiles says, “Derek Hale.”

Parrish’s hands tighten on the wheel.

“Yeah. So, get this, the Hales owned the land just outside of the preserve before Argent somehow got her hands on it.”

“So,” Stiles says, head spinning, nausea crawling up his throat, “if we find him, it’s likely that he’ll be here?”

“Yeah. I mean, we just arrested Argent. She hadn’t had time to pop out to one of her other properties. This one is close. If she wanted to dispose of him, she’d either leave him at the property or out in the preserve.”

“Can you get us dogs?” Stiles asks. “If he’s out in the preserve, we won’t find him. We might be looking for a body by now, anyway. I don’t think Kate Argent would be kind enough to leave him somewhere easily accessible.”

“I’ll see what I can do about the dogs, but, Stiles, you realize that you’re the only one who thinks Derek Hale is missing. As far as everyone else knows, he’s dead. Died six years ago before the fire that killed the rest of his family. He’d be twenty today if he somehow survived.”

“Send me a picture of Derek Hale as kid,” Stiles says. “Let me see if it matches the man I saw in the _Big Mart_ parking lot.”

“Okay. Done.”

Stiles pulls his phone away from his ear and taps open the text Danny just sent him. The kid is cute, with a serious expression, something furrowing his brows, and dear lord do those brows match the man from the _Big Mart_ ’s parking lot. So do his eyes, an aventurine mix of greens, blues, and browns.

Stiles puts the phone back to his ear. “It’s him,” he says, almost breathlessly. “Yeah, I’d say the man I saw was twenty, maybe twenty-two at the oldest. His brows, his nose, they match.” His eyes, he wants to add, but he’s struck by the thought that even after whatever mystery man—Derek Hale—did to him, he still remembers those eyes.

“Are you sure?” Danny taps at his keyboard and then swears softly. “Yeah,” he says a few beats later, “that’s definitely Derek Hale.”

“So, how did Kate end up with what should have been his property? And did she have anything to do with the death of his family?”

“We’re here,” Parrish interrupts. He puts the vehicle in park, and Stiles stares at what used to be a statuesque building. Now, there’s just a few bare bones of a house, mostly charred, all about ready to fall down.

“This is it?” Stiles asks in disbelief. Kate’s taken such care with everything else. Why not this too?

Parrish shrugs. “Got supplies?” he asks, pointing at the dark doorway.

“In the trunk.” They both climb out, and Parrish heads to the trunk while Stiles circles the building. There’s empty beer cans and cigarette butts littered all over the place. It’s obvious this is the hangout spot of Beacon Hills. Probably teenagers. Maybe some college kids.

Behind the house, Stiles finds a path of thin tire treads, maybe from a bicycle. It’s not fresh but it hasn’t disintegrated either. He’d estimate it to be at least a few days old. Probably around the time that Kate was arrested.

Parrish finds him studying the tread.

“Not a bike,” Parrish says, as if reading Stiles’ mind. “There’s another over here. See?” He points out the second track. Shoulder-width apart. It’s probably from a cart.

“Think she used something to transport him?”

“Would have had to,” Parrish agrees. “How much would you say Hale weighs?”

“Probably around hundred-twenty-five, hundred-fifty. He’s not that big.” But still, unconscious or restrained, Kate would have needed a way to move him, and she weighs maybe hundred-twenty.

“Oh, what about that?” Parrish walks over to a narrow doorway, stoops down enough to duck under the sagging beam. He pokes his head out and waves excitedly at Stiles.

Sure enough, in the gathered dust and uncleared ash, the treads stand out. And with them, a pair of shoe prints.

The tracks lead them to a small hole in the floor. It’s not too deep, Stiles thinks, but it’s hard to see since there’s not enough light coming through the broken rafters.

He takes a deep breath and then carefully lowers himself into the hole. Parrish tosses down one of the two flashlights from Stiles’ trunk and comes down himself. Together, they click on their lights.

“Tracks go this way,” Stiles says, hushed. Without the elements, these tracks seem fresher. They’re not, but it means they’re headed in the right direction.

Only one way to find out for sure.

Stiles squares his shoulders and starts walking, Parrish at his back.

~ * ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this chapter, I have officially reached over 1 million words posted to AO3!
> 
> To celebrate, I am taking prompts!
> 
> Either send them in comments or submit them to [my Tumblr](https://1989dreamer.tumblr.com/). Please be aware that I reserve the right to not write a prompt for personal reasons.
> 
> Thanks for reading at least some of the million words I've posted here.


	4. Derek

~ * ~

Derek doesn’t know how long he’s been hanging here. It could be hours, days, or maybe just minutes.

The smoldering ruins of what Kate burned make him think it’s only been a few hours. But he can’t actually smell the burnt plastic because the monkshood against his lips fucks with his senses on all levels. He can’t even hear properly enough to tell if anyone’s been snooping around the property.

He’s already vomited twice, black toxins purged from his body and trapped in his mouth by the tape and monkshood.

It’s getting harder to breathe through his nose, blood constantly leaking from his nostrils. He’s sluggish, a combination of the poison working its way through his veins and the dehydration setting in.

Small blessings and all that, but he’s too sick to feel any hunger.

Werewolves burn through a ton of calories when they operate at full strength. With curbing his energy output, Derek has increased his odds of survival by at least three days, unless the monkshood isn’t removed soon. Then, no matter how much he conserves he will die inside of a week.

Tears of frustration well up. Moisture he can’t spare for an emotion he doesn’t have time for. He struggles weakly, trying to free a hand so that he can scrape off the tape. He almost succeeds. More tears come when he falls back against the fence, blood running down his wrists, still both firmly caught in the cuffs.

He throws his head back, howls weakly.

The sludge he’d vomited goes back down his throat, choking him, poisoning him more.

It’s a relief when he finally manages to pass out, sure of only one thing: he’s going to die here.

~ * ~

Derek wakes up to find that he can actually breathe. The tape has somehow detached itself and is hanging from the side of his jaw, and the monkshood is gone. It takes a few minutes for him to locate it on the floor under the toes of his left foot.

He spits. Black goop dripping from his mouth. The blood in his nose is dry, so it’s been a little while at least. Good. That means he has a chance to get his strength back before dehydration kicks in and kills him.

He can finally smell the acrid smoke still hanging in the enclosed air, and it makes his throat burn.

It makes him think of Kate. For the first time since she left him here to die, he wonders if she will come back. She’s done so many things to him: tied him up, poisoned him with monkshood, cut him with knives, burned him. Done so many things that he has a little trouble recalling everything.

She really did invest eight years in him. He can’t believe that she would be so willing to throw him aside. She likes torturing him a little too much for that. Why else would she have made him start turning tricks at fifteen and yet kept him in her bed?

What if it was her plan all along for the tape to fall off? For him to have a way back to his werewolf strength? Derek struggles a little harder, feeling the wounds on his wrists reopen. He has no idea if he’s ahead of schedule with Kate or not. Best to act like he’s behind and get the fuck out while the getting is good.

Finally, one hand comes free, jerking Derek’s body sideways. He scrabbles with his feet until he finds enough of a foothold to take the weight off his shoulder. Then, he works to free the other hand. He drops like a stone, right onto the monkshood. He suppresses a whimper as he rolls free of the herb.

He comes up standing and is suddenly face to face with a flashlight.

Kate.

He growls, swiping at the person holding the flashlight.

Pain explodes in his shoulder, and he howls, pressing a hand to the new wound. He’s still too weak. But Kate came back. She won’t try to kill him again so soon. Will she?

The light swings off his face.

“Jesus Christ, Parrish!” Michael snaps. “What the fuck was that?”

“Sorry,” another man apologizes. “Thought he was armed.”

“With what?”

Michael kneels down, puts a finger to Derek’s neck. He snaps at him with completely human teeth.

“Easy, boy. You’re okay now.”

“Get away from me.” Derek takes a deep breath, starts coughing. Michael frowns in sympathy and places a handkerchief over his mouth and nose.

“You’ve had a rough few days,” he says, tone soft. “Think you can stand for us? We’d like to get you to safety.”

“Kate?” Derek asks. He tries to see around Michael to Parrish. From his brief encounters with Redding police, he knows Parrish is a bleeding heart cop. He doesn’t turn in prostitutes and tries to report his colleagues for their transgressions. He’s on the short track out of the police. What he’s doing here and with Michael no less, is as confusing to Derek as the fact that apparently Kate really had left him here to die.

“Behind bars,” Michael says, “to stay.”

“Sorry about shooting you,” Parrish says, dropping down next to Michael. He puts a hand on Derek’s mostly-healed shoulder. It still stings. Probably won’t actually be fully healed for a few hours at least, but it’s definitely encouraging that it is healing already.

“And you won’t put me there?” Derek asks. “You won’t let Kate get me?”

“Never again,” Stiles promises, Michael shed from him like a second skin. Derek reaches up a trembling hand, stained with blood, and touches Stiles’ cheek. Stiles catches it, presses a light kiss to the center of his palm. “I swear. She will never touch you again.”

Derek blames the monkshood still in his system, blames Parrish’s bullet in his shoulder, blames exhaustion and dehydration, blames everything he can for the way he passes out in Stiles’ arms.

~ * ~

When he’s aware again, he’s in the back of a car. Stiles’ from the way it smells of him. Stiles is in the backseat with him, holding him.

Derek allows five seconds to enjoy the warmth of the human, and then he sits up. “What happened to Michael?” he asks.

“Michael was retired when we arrested Kate Argent.”

“And is she really gone? Not going to come after me again?”

Stiles shakes his head. “We will do our best to stop her, but I have to be honest: I think she might come after you if she realizes that you survived.”

“Tell me something,” Parrish says without turning his head, “did I imagine the fact that you had glowing eyes and claws?”

Derek shudders. “I’m what is commonly known as a lycanthrope.”

“Werewolf,” Stiles says. He shifts next to Derek, but not like he’s pulling away. Instead, he strokes a hand through Derek’s hair. “So, that’s what that plant was? Some kind of werewolf inhibitor?”

“Yeah.”

“What?” Parrish breaks in, “like, wolfsbane?”

“Yes,” Derek snaps peevishly. He’s entitled to a little irritation. Parrish did shoot him after all.

“Hey, Stilinski, think I know where your memory issues are coming from.”

“What? The wolfsbane?”

“Yeah,” Parrish says. “Wolfsbane, aconite, monkshood. It’s all toxic to humans. Usually it causes nervous system shock, but I guess if you were getting second-hand exposure it could have been diluted down to just memory loss.”

“So it’s my fault you didn’t remember me,” Derek says softly.

“No. Not at all.” Stiles’ hand tightens in his hair before relaxing. “You didn’t poison yourself and then poison me via contact.”

“No. Kate was doing it to punish me because I wasn’t bringing in quota on Wednesdays.”

He outlines, as briefly as he can, just what Kate used to do to him. The stench of horror and anger permeates the car.

Kate has groomed him for so long that his first reaction is that they’re mad at him for telling them.

As if reading his mind, Stiles says, “I wish we could kill that bitch. I’m sure no one would miss her.”

Derek pauses, thinking. Does he want Kate dead? She’s done so much to him, isolated him so completely, that he isn’t sure he can fully integrate back into regular life, even the life of a werewolf. Which brings up another question.

“Why aren’t you upset that I’m a werewolf?” he asks. Again, Kate taught him that she only tolerated him because of what he could do for her. Namely the fact that he could heal relatively quickly and without scarring.

“Why should we be upset?” Stiles asks. “You haven’t hurt anyone, have you?”

“Well he tried to take you out,” Parrish points out.

“And you shot him,” Stiles says. “But,” he cuts a quick glance to Derek, “once that happened, you stopped too. So, I’d guess that you aren’t as much a danger to me as, say, Katherine Argent.”

Stiles’ phone rings, and he answers it. Derek doesn’t have to strain his ears to hear the other person.

“Stiles, it’s Danny. Look, just thought you might to know: I found a will supposedly drawn up by Talia Hale three days before the fire. Now, the will was contested hotly because it left everything to Katherine Argent even though there was sister who lived, and still does, down state, near Chula Vista.

“Also, get this, the sister doesn’t think that Derek is dead.”

“Oh yeah?” Stiles murmurs. “And why is that?”

“No body was ever recovered. So she’s been spending all this time challenging the validity of the will and the fact that Derek just essentially disappeared.”

“Stiles? Why did you need search and rescue dogs? And why was the order called off immediately?” A new voice comes on the line. A woman. Derek doesn’t recognize her.

Stiles obviously knows her, though. “Lydia. Captain. We were following a lead where we suspected that Argent had stashed the man who confronted me in the _Big Mart_ parking lot out in the old Hale house or the preserve.”

“And you found him?” Lydia asks. She whistles lowly. “That’s rough. Get him to a hospital and then get your ass back here for debrief.”

“Will do, Captain.” The phone goes quiet, and Stiles pockets it.

“So, hospital,” Parrish says. “Beacon Memorial?”

“Closest,” Stiles agrees.

“I don’t need a hospital,” Derek says. He knows though, if he’s given an IV, he’ll heal faster because his fluids will be replenished.

“Hospital,” Stiles says, somewhat sternly. “You know this town better than I do.”

“And I’m driving,” Parrish adds, taking a left at a stop light Derek recalls being a stop sign when he was a kid.

Beacon Hills hasn’t changed much but the ways it has changed make him feel like a stranger.

Or maybe it’s the monkshood still in his system because not ten seconds later, he leans forward and forcibly expels more of the poison from his mouth. Then he passes out.

~ * ~

Derek wakes up refreshed in a way that he hasn’t since he was eleven. He sits up, stretches his limbs and his senses.

He’s still in the hospital, and though he’s no longer here, Stiles’ scent is strong.

It’s nice to have someone waiting for him. Someone who doesn’t want to hurt or use him.

Outside his door, he can hear hushed whispers. The woman from the phone, Lydia, and Stiles.

They’re arguing. And she’s winning.

“Yeah, okay,” Stiles says finally, after an angry silence. “I accept.”

He walks away and Lydia comes into Derek’s room.

“So, Mr. Hale,” she says, seriously, “give me one good reason not to arrest you for solicitation.”

Derek’s mouth goes dry. He’d been so worried about Kate coming back that he hadn’t thought about what the cops would do to him. How can he tell this woman that Kate used him, killed his family, and kept him? How can he talk about what Kate put him through?

“I didn’t have a choice,” he finally settles on.

Lydia doesn’t look impressed, one eyebrow raised. She’s not giving off any chemosignals, so he doesn’t know what intentions she has for him. For all he knows, she’s going to be another Kate: fake his death and keep him under her thumb.

If that’s the case, then Derek would rather die for real.

Lydia nods sharply. “Understood.” She turns on her heel and marches to the door. She turns back for a brief moment. “You won’t be given this chance again,” she says. “I suggest you take it.”

She leaves, the door closing quietly behind her.

Derek slumps back to his bed, head spinning. Either she didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him—not likely if she’s talked to Kate—or she’s realized that he’s a victim of Kate’s. He’s not sure which is preferable, but at least he’s alive. And, with a few tugs on his IV, free.

He finds his clothes folded neatly in a bag. They stink, but they’re his. He pulls them on, pries open the window (from the crunching noise it makes, it wasn’t meant to do that. Oops.), and slips out.

A few miles down the road, he’s overtaken by Parrish driving a different vehicle. Parrish stops, reverses, and rolls down his window. He’s got mirrored sunglasses hiding his eyes, but a smile pulls his lips up and his scent is pleasant.

“Need a ride?” he asks. “Heard you’ve got an aunt down south. Hop in and we’ll go.”

“What about your job?” Derek asks.

Parrish shrugs. “Fuck it. I’m quitting anyway. Can’t work law enforcement for too long or you get spoiled with the rest of the apples. No better way to go than helping someone the bad apples will railroad with his abuser.”

Derek climbs into the car and buckles his seat belt. Parrish gives him a grin, drops a pair of sunglasses in Derek’s lap, and pulls back onto the road.

“Hi, my name is Jordan Parrish, formerly of Redding, California.” He sticks out his hand without taking his eyes off the road. Derek shakes it.

“Derek Hale,” he says. Then, after a beat, “Formerly of Beacon Hills, California.”

~ * ~

By the time they get to Chula Vista, Derek knows that Parrish, Jordan now, served two tours in Iraq, went right into police work because it was the closest to the soldiering he’d done, but he was thoroughly sick of the bullshittery that every police station he’d ever been in was doing. He’d anonymously submitted a few complaints but hadn’t seen the fruition of it before he’d moved on.

Derek also learned that he’d always suspected that the Hale fire was an arson job and not the murder-suicide it was labeled.

Jordan pulls into a long drive lined with trees, slowing his speed to a crawl and rolling down the windows. Derek appreciates the gesture for what it is and sticks his head out, sniffing deeply.

Jordan smiles. “Knew you were hiding something about being a werewolf. Tell me, are your ears as good as your nose?”

“Usually,” Derek says. “Why?”

“I’m guessing you heard Lydia firing Stiles then.”

Derek pulls back inside. “No?” He thinks back on what he’d heard. Stiles had said “I accept.” Had Stiles really been fired? Why? Because of Derek? Because they’d slept together? Technically, neither of them had revealed any secrets vital to their respective organizations, and money had never exchanged hands. Derek had made sure of that. He didn’t want to fall in love with someone he had to charge.

And that had led to Kate poisoning him with the monkshood, which in turn led to Stiles forgetting about their illicit meetings.

It is all Derek’s fault.

A sudden blur beside the car startles him.

It’s a woman he doesn’t recognize, standing there, staring at him with a darkening gaze. She inhales deeply, probably preparing to tell them off for being on private property, but he sees realization stay her tongue at the same time that he caches her scent.

Derek doesn’t even open the car door. He has no memory of how he got out of Jordan’s car. All he knows is he’s embracing the first thing that’s smelled like home in six years. He’s also crying, sobbing harshly.

The woman holds him, crying too.

“Derek,” Jordan says, “meet your aunt, Emily.”

Emily pulls back, strokes her thumbs over Derek’s wet cheeks. “Hello, Derek,” she says thickly. “Welcome home.”

~ * ~


	5. Stiles (Epilogue)

~ * ~

**~ Two Years Later ~**

Stiles somehow finds himself down by Chula Vista about two years after he was fired from the Violent Crimes Unit. He hasn’t exactly been avoiding this part of the state, but he hasn’t exactly been volunteering to come down here.

He works for a rescue organization, helping supernaturals displaced by hunter interference, like Derek.

It’s been good to him. He works with a team, a kitsune named Kira, a literal genius named Mason and his bitten-werewolf sidekick Liam. He also works with Parrish, who is working on poaching a few of the now-dismantled VCU techs.

Stiles is actually down this way because usually Parrish checks in on Derek—having your family killed by your abuser, being abducted, raped, and then turned out means everyone gets a little nervous that you might seek revenge. So someone from the organization checks in every few months, whenever the local hunters get a little antsy and start gearing up to go after the omega.

Stiles sighs. He’d been tricked into this. Parrish had claimed that he needed to see to some other vague matters, and before Stiles knew it, Kira had suggested that Stiles take over Parrish’s quarterly trip.

So now he was here, turning into the long drive that led up to Emily Valens’ ranch, cursing his bad luck.

Well. Not bad so much unfortunate. It isn’t that he doesn’t want to see Derek again. In fact, he hasn’t stopped wanting to find Derek and ask him about those missing moments.

A few months after drifting aimlessly before being recruited into the organization, Stiles had gone to a hypnotherapist. He didn’t put much stock into it, but he began dreaming of more than Derek’s eyes. He’s positive they’ve fucked at least once, and he can remember the way Derek’s skin looked under the spray of a shitty motel shower.

He also knows that Derek never took money from him, and that Stiles kept trying to push it, thinking that if he could just buy Derek’s love, he could save him from a life of turning tricks.

There’s a group of horses grazing by the fence lining the road. Stiles parks and gets out to watch them. He’s always admired the long lines of them, but they terrify him up close. He’s not naïve enough think that the fence will protect him if any of the horses get the idea that Stiles is an enemy.

Still, he leans on the fence.

“Cool, aren’t they?”

Stiles absolutely doesn’t startle and fall to the ground.

Laughing, Derek extends a hand to pull him back up. Stiles accepts. He smiles ruefully and dusts off the seat of his jeans.

“So is this the three-month check-in?” Derek peers around. “Where’s Jordan? He usually brings me something from town.”

“Oh?”

Derek grins at him. “Nah. Just messing with you.” He taps some dust off Stiles’ shoulder. “It’s good to see you. Sorry about you getting fired over me.”

Stiles waves the apology away. “It wasn’t a big deal. I prefer the job I have now anyway.”

Derek nods sagely. “Suits you. You didn’t seem surprised to learn of the supernatural.”

Stiles shrugs. “I don’t know why. It just seemed logical. I mean, we found you after a human should have been dead.” He hates that reminder. He’s spent two years trying to forget the circumstances of how they found Derek Hale. They hadn’t even rescued him; he’d done that for himself.

“Hey, how’s your memories?”

“Improved,” Stiles answers, glad for the distraction. He leans on the fence again. Derek copies his posture.

The horses whinny a little, Stiles guesses in fear, and Derek’s eyes glow. Stiles likes the color, thinks they’re almost as pretty as Derek’s human eyes. The horses settle.

“That’s really cool.”

Derek blushes a little. “It’s nothing. Just communication.”

“Still.” Stiles stands up. “So I know you’re not a threat no matter what the local hate group thinks.”

Derek snorts. “Never heard of hunters referred to as a hate group before. Not even my aunt disparages them like that and they’ve been harassing her for years, even before I came here.”

“Well they seem to think that werewolves are more of a threat to humans, and then they train their whole family in lethal force. And this particular group seems to think that you are the most threatening of all. I have half a mind to go give them their asses.”

“Do they think I’m still an omega?” Derek asks quietly. “I’m not. I haven’t been since the day my aunt took me in. She even got me into therapy to help with all the shit Kate put me through.”

“That’s good, great. And yeah, that’s all been documented. That’s why I called them a hate group. They’re trying to stir up a reason to attack your aunt and kill you. My guess would be to get Kate’s charges reduced.”

Derek shudders. “Will I have to testify?”

“Probably. Her lawyer has filed so many motions that we won’t even be able to see the inside of a courtroom for another six months. She’s doing everything except taking a plea deal, even though the evidence against her is nearly insurmountable.”

“Nearly is not infallible,” Derek murmurs. “I don’t want to face her again. I’m not ready.” He’s shaking, tears welling in his eyes. Stiles steps closer, slips an arm around his waist.

“Hey, I’m right here. I’ll always be here for you.”

Derek laughs bitterly. “Like you’ve been here for the past two years?”

Stiles nods. “Yeah, I deserve that. I wasn’t trying to avoid you on purpose, it’s just that I needed time to heal too.” He tightens his grip preemptively, and Derek tests it by pulling away before sagging against him more thoroughly.

“I loved you, once,” Derek says to the ground.

“And I think I loved you too,” Stiles says. “There must have been a reason that we kept meeting.”

“And you never remembered me anyway,” Derek adds ruefully. “Sorry about that. If I’d realized that I was poisoning you with the—”

“Hey, no.” Stiles holds up a hand. “You didn’t know you were still poisoned yourself. Kate is the only one to blame for that.” He can see that Derek doesn’t believe him. Hell, Stiles went through a phase where he hated everything about Derek Hale and blamed him too. But, through his own therapy, he’s come to realize that Derek never really meant to hurt him.

And that he really wishes he could remember the one and only time they fucked. Oh yeah, Danny was so gleeful giving him the news that the DNA outside the condom was Derek’s.

He’d ribbed him pretty good after. So much so that Stiles had passed his name onto the director of the supernatural organization, a werewolf of impeccable taste and indeterminable age. Now Satomi Ito is aggressively recruiting each and every useful tech she can from the Redding police and the Shasta Sheriff Department.

She’s almost got Danny, but he’s decided he’s a package deal with Lahey, Boyd, and Reyes. Stiles still doesn’t like Lahey, but he has to admit that he’s mellowed quite a bit since Kate’s arrest.

Derek snaps his fingers, and Stiles refocuses his eyes.

“There you are.”

God, that smile. That’s one of the things Stiles does remember.

“I missed that,” he admits quietly, smiling himself. “That’s something not even the aconite took away.” He has snippets of memories, of Derek sitting on the bed, cheek balanced on his knees as he watched Stiles moving around the room, of those eyes shuttering whenever Stiles mentioned a future together.

Idly, he wonders if Derek would have the same reaction now if he talked to him like that.

“Now what are you thinking about?” Derek asks, amused. He taps Stiles’ forehead. “You keep going a million miles away, and I can practically smell the projector going. You’re remembering things.”

Self-conscious, Stiles bats his finger away. “You can’t really smell that,” he grouses.

Derek laughs, and holy hell, Stiles wishes he’d remembered that. That alone would have been worth every promise he ever made Derek.

“Thinking,” Derek says. “Anyway. No, I can’t smell your brain working, but I can smell the chemosignals you give off. Sometimes you’re angry or frustrated and sometimes you’re happy.”

“And what are my chemosignals telling you now?”

Derek pretends to inhale. “Worried, hopeful.”

“And you?” Stiles asks. “You seem to have me at a disadvantage. How would your chemosignals smell if I could smell them?”

Derek ducks his head, but not before Stiles sees a blush creep up his neck. “Probably happy,” he admits quietly. “I’ve missed you. I thought you were mad at me or hated me and that’s why you stayed away. I mean, I got you fired.”

“No you didn’t,” Stiles says. “I got me fired. And let me tell you, if I hadn’t been fired, I would have left. I wasn’t really cut out for that job.”

“Are you trying to make me feel better?”

“Kind of. Is it working?” Derek nods. “Seriously though, I wouldn’t have stayed in that job much longer than my first case. I was already disliked by my coworkers and I was put undercover without establishing a support system with my coworkers. I didn’t feel I could trust my boss with the information that I suspected I was in contact with a potential suspect.”

“Apparently not enough of a suspect if you met me multiple times,” Derek points out.

“Or maybe you let me see the real you and I maybe fell in love with you and that’s why I kept coming back. I still remembered pieces of you. Your smile, your eyes. I think I remember talking for hours and not doing anything.”

“Except for that last time,” Derek reminds him, a little bitter.

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, just as bitter. “You have no idea how much I wish I could remember that.”

Shyly, blushing again, Derek asks, “Do you want to do it again so you can remember?”

Stiles’ brain short circuits and he’s left staring at Derek, leaning on the fence, pretending that he’s not invested in an answer Stiles can’t make his mouth form, can’t make his vocal chords vibrate for.

Derek seems satisfied though, cocking his head and clicking his tongue at the horses. “Wanna come meet my aunt? She’s totally cool if we end up fucking somewhere.”

Stiles swallows wrong and starts coughing. Derek pats at his back awkwardly.

“Yes please,” Stiles manages to gasp out. “Are you sure? I mean, I don’t want to, like, force you into anything.”

Derek cocks his head again. “Maybe we should discuss consent?” He suddenly jumps so high that he clears Stiles’ car with, like, two feet of space and lands on the other side. He climbs into the passenger seat and buckles the seat belt like he didn’t just jump over Stiles’ fucking Jeep.

Staring at him won’t undo the incredible feat he just witnessed. Like, Stiles knows that werewolves have powers—better sight, better hearing, more strength—but knowing it and seeing it are two different things.

Satomi Ito had sat both him and Parrish down and given them a crash course on how to deal with different supernaturals, but aside from flashing her red eyes at them, they hadn’t encountered anything werewolf about her.

Stiles gets into the driver’s seat and turns to see Derek grinning at him. “Impressive,” Stiles finally says before he buckles up and starts the engine.

It feels right to be driving down this lane, Derek in the passenger seat pointing out things that Stiles can barely see, their conversation flowing naturally. Stiles gets the feeling that Derek hasn’t talked this much to someone lately. Not even his aunt.

Derek flushes. “It’s a little hard to talk about what happened to me. My aunt’s been good. She took me in, gave me a home and a pack, but how can I tell her why I was spared when the rest of the family wasn’t?”

Stiles reaches out his hand, surprised when Derek actually grabs it. “I’m sure she loves you very much. But you also don’t have to explain to anyone.”

“You know my past though,” Derek says, still holding onto Stiles’ hand even though he won’t make eye contact. Stiles focuses on driving, purposefully keeping his eyes forward.

“I know some of it,” he admits. “Not all of it and you don’t have to tell me anything either. I still like you a lot and want to be with you. Maybe in more than a sex way. I think that’s where we were going and why I was trying to tempt you away from a life I thought I could.”

“It takes time.” Derek drops Stiles’ hand and buries both of his in his hair, pulling at it. “I’m so sick of time. I just want to fuck without flashing back to Kate and her torture. I just want to live without the constant reminder that I wasn’t strong enough to get away from her until she literally left me for dead.” Derek scrubs at his eyes, and Stiles offers his hand again. “It’s been two years. Why am I not over it yet?”

“Hey, you were trapped in a very abusive situation for six years. You’ve been out for only two. It will take time to heal, but time isn’t all you have.” Stiles lifts a finger, “You’ve got a therapist.” Another finger. “You have your aunt and your pack.” Another finger. “And you have me.” He shakes his three fingers. “I’m sure there’s more, but that’s something you’ll have to discover for yourself.”

Derek takes Stiles’ hand again, holding onto those three fingers for a brief moment before switching to the whole hand. “And you’re here?”

“For as long as you want,” Stiles promises.

“Even if it’s forever?”

“Even forever.” Hell, Satomi’s been saying that they need to establish satellite offices around the country. Why not have one down here in Chula Vista? Stiles can transfer here and be with Derek every spare minute. Realistically, he knows that it’s one, not especially healthy to tie their lives together so soon after coming back into each other’s orbit and two, there’s no plans to put an office down here and it may not be feasible to do so for a while.

“Forever forever?” Derek asks.

“As long as forever lasts,” Stiles replies. He puts the Jeep in park because they’ve reached the house. He barely sees it because Derek tugs on his hand, turns him gently, and slots their mouths together.

Stiles doesn’t remember any kisses from before but he bets they were all this sweet, with a little nibble at his lower lip to get him to open his mouth for Derek’s tongue. They kiss like old lovers, and it makes Stiles ache at what they could have been without Kate Argent, his undercover job, and Derek’s abuse. For now though, he lets himself fall into the fantasy of forever. They’ll figure out the logistics later.

~ End ~


End file.
